


The (Attempted) Assassination(s) of Daisy Tonner by the Coward Jonathan Sims

by yellow_caballero



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/F, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Post Season 4, Temporary Amnesia, YEE FUCKING HAW, an overdose of Americana, displaying affection to your best friend by taking him to disney world: How Not To Do it, in the land of the blind the Good Girl is King, post-apocalyptic roadtrip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22944469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellow_caballero/pseuds/yellow_caballero
Summary: Daisy wakes up to Jon standing over her with a knife.Or: the process by which Daisy becomes a cowboy and Jon forgets the Alamo.
Relationships: Background Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood - Relationship, Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 55
Kudos: 359





	The (Attempted) Assassination(s) of Daisy Tonner by the Coward Jonathan Sims

**Author's Note:**

> Small thing written while working on the sequel to BBC. Takes place post Season 4. I have not seen Season 4. I really hope you guys like Texas. 
> 
> THE STARS AT NIGHT, ARE BIG AND BRIGHT. *CLAP CLAP CLAP*.

Daisy woke up to Jon standing over her with a knife. 

She rolled onto her back and kicked out her foot, landing a solid blow to his windpipe. Jon wheezed and doubled over, dropping the knife, and Daisy smoothly leapt to her feet and body checked him onto the hard, dusty desert ground. They grappled for a second, Jon’s height and reach outmatched by her muscle and experience, and Daisy managed to pin him to the cracked earth. Easily and efficiently, she stripped off her grimy tank top and tied it around his eyes. His head lolled and he slumped, like a scruffed kitten, going weak and limber. 

Daisy rolled off him, still blinking sleep from her eyes. The desert air was light and sharp, smelling just slightly of ozone, and a cold wind blew. She had always read that deserts were cold at night, but the heat was only uncomfortably warm. It was fall, or thereabouts, and the temperature was mild and navigable. They would have more difficulty once winter came. If it would. The leaves hadn’t exactly changed color when summer turned to fall, but in the American South they usually didn’t. 

The moon was almost useless for telling the time, but Daisy could still tell that it was early at night. She could sleep for a little longer. She was tired, but she always was. It was a persistent, bone grinding ache, the kind that never abated so much as receded. She wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week. But Jon probably wouldn’t survive that long without her. 

Daisy stood up, taking a second to appreciate the breeze over her bare shoulders, and hopped onto the lip of the truck to dig through the back. There - Jon’s blindfold had slipped loose in the night, too loosely secured. Dammit. She fetched it and some rope, and for good measure grabbing a spool of bandages too ripped up to be useful, and walked back over to where Jon was huddled on the ground. He didn’t move or react to her presence, catatonic again. She bent down and removed her shirt from his eyes before she pressed his eyes shut, carefully winding the bandages around his eyes and cinching them firm. She tied the blindfold on over that, because sometimes she liked to think that he found the blindfold cool, and grabbed him by the collar of his filthy t-shirt. She dragged him across the ground, his limp body pulling tracks in the sandy dirt, catching on weeds and cracks, and dropped him next to the back of the truck. Unwinding the spool of rope, she held his hands together and gently looped it around the back hitch of the truck. She left enough give that he could continue lying on the ground, but tied both ends of the rope firm, and when she stepped back to survey the handiwork she finally remembered to grab him a sleeping mat, blanket, and pillow. The blanket had Toy Story on it. She had the sense it was his favorite - not for the Toy Story. But it was soft.

She dragged her sleeping gear closer to him, made sure the knife was locked away in the trunk, and allowed herself to gently nod back to sleep. It was easy, even though her sleep had been troubled and uncomfortable lately. Hard not to, when your travelling partner kept on accidentally trying to kill you, and you always felt watched. 

Daisy Tonner slept under the giant, luminous eye in the sky, lit by the twinkling of stars. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Help! Help! Someone help me!”

Daisy was abruptly thrust back into wakefulness, yet again, by Jonathan Sims being annoying. It was still dark out, and she felt as if only a few hours could have passed. She yawned widely, rubbing her eyes and sitting up from her sleeping bag. 

“Is someone there? Help! Help, I’ve been kidnapped!”

“Shut up,” Daisy said gruffly. “Before someone hears you.”

Jon turned his head to her direction. His eyebrows were high, his posture cowering and frightened, and he kept tugging at the short length of rope connecting him to the truck hitch. He had clearly been up for a little while - he was sitting on top of his sleeping mat, and there were faint footprints around him. Testing the reach of the rope before calling for help. The bandages and blindfold were slightly askew on his face without being removed, thank fuck. If he had successfully managed to get the bandages off then she’d be stuck with her friend in homicidal mode again, and that was just annoying. 

“You, lady! Can you help me? Someone - someone kidnapped me, I’m tied up. I can’t see anything. Please help.”

No recognition. As usual. Daisy sighed, rolling to her feet again and packing up her bedroll. She tossed it easily onto the bed of the truck, and Jon started at the thump. This happened once a month or so, usually right after he managed to slip his bandages like an unruly kitten escaping from an itchy collar. It would have been almost adorable if it wasn’t so fucking annoying. 

“I’m not untying you now,” Daisy said flatly. “Stop yelling, you’re going to attract the attention of something much worse than me. Don’t touch the blindfold or I’ll kill you.”

Jon froze, like a frightened rabbit. Daisy thumped around camp, packing up the trunk containing their pots and pans and making sure the campfire was well extinguished. Leave no traces and all that. Only _you_ can prevent forest fires.

She could see it in his face, the thousand questions running through his expression. Finally, the one he seemed to settle on was, “What are you going to do with me?”

“Save your life.” Daisy grabbed his bony little wrists, much bonier than they used to be. Food was hard to find out here, and while monster meat was good eating when you could find it, it wasn’t always available. Daisy was sick of biscuits. Not even real biscuits, the awful tacky stuff Americans shoved down their gullets. “Hands above your head.”

He slowly raised his hands as far up as he could, and Daisy swiftly untied the rope from the truck hitch. She put a hand on the small of his back and gently pushed him forward, and Jon stumbled as he attempted to follow the direction. She opened the giant door of the truck for him, and quietly directed him to step up onto the stained leather seat. When she buckled the seatbelt for him, pooled the leftover rope in his lap, and slammed the door shut, she stepped backwards a few paces and slowly counted to ten. 

At seven, he opened the door. She shut it. “Don’t try leaving. I have a gun. Don’t make me prove it.”

Hopefully this would only last for a day, like last time. He was _annoying_ like this. 

Stretching the tarp over the back of the cargo, she secured it tightly against possible rain, and finally slid into the driver’s seat. Jon was sitting primly in the passenger’s seat, hands in his lap, nervousness only evident by the way he rubbed at the rope in his lap. 

Inhale. Hope, prayer. Daisy gunned the engine. It roared to life, sputtering against the half-tank of gas they still had left. Exhale. Hope fulfilled. Daisy stomped the gas pedal, driving through bumpy terrain until they reached the road again. In more previously population dense areas she wouldn’t have even dared, but New Mexico was a whole lot of nothing. Sometimes it felt like all of America was like that - nothing after nothing after nothing. From the port where they landed in Tijuana to the way they snuck into beautiful California, aimlessly chasing their tails until they oriented themselves east and shot forward like bullets from a gun, it was all nothing. 

They rode in silence for a period of time, hearing nothing but the roar of the engine. The sky was - well, the Eye was still there, but other than that it was clear and bright. Every window in the car was rolled down, and Daisy hadn’t exactly bothered to put a shirt back on, and she let herself feel a modicum of joy from the cool breeze brushing against her shoulders. Actually, she probably should put a shirt back on. Sunburn was a bitch.

If she could even get sunburned. Things didn’t seem to hurt her too much, these days. 

“Where are we?”

Joy gone. Daisy sighed, blowing a tendril of stringy blonde hair out of her face. She had to cut it again soon. “Don’t you know?”

“I - I don’t remember how we got here.” It was so painfully clear in his voice that he was scared and trying to hide it, and Daisy abruptly felt almost a little bad for being so curt with him. Just because she was tired and stressed didn’t mean she should take it out on him. He was scared but was trying to seem brave and in control. “Did you drug me?”

“What year is it, Jon?” 

Jon was silent, before hesitantly giving a number. She gave him a much higher one. 

“That’s impossible. You’re lying.”

“Feel your right hand.” The highway crawled by as Jon rubbed his hands together. His eyebrows raised again. “That feels long healed, doesn’t it? By a few years? I can’t fake that.”

“Why am I here?” 

Finally, a decent question. “Because you’re my friend,” Daisy said easily, because despite everything that was still true. “And because you’re the last hope for the world.”

“I - _what_?”

“You’ll remember tomorrow. Or some time.” Daisy sighed. Not that it would matter then. She leafed easily through the stack of cassettes between the seats, picking one out at random and shoving it in the tape player. Styx started blasting through the truck, quite loudly. “No point answering more questions.”

Jon was silent for a long moment, before slumping against the window as in defeat. When his hands slowly drifted up to his blindfold again she whistled sharply, and his hands dropped to his lap again. 

How terrible it was, to miss someone when they were right next to you. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


A long distant memory: Daisy and her friends, sitting in a pub, laughing. 

She was sitting next to Basira, her arm slung over the back of the vinyl booth and drifting tantalizingly close to Basira’s shoulders. Neither of them were much for public displays of affection, but some part of Daisy couldn’t help but love little motions like that - curls of the lips, angles of the arms, that said _mine mine mine_. When they walked back home from the pub, drunkenly stumbling into each other, then Basira would let Daisy’s hands slip over her shoulders, and Basira’s arms would find a way to curl around her waist, but in the dimly lit lights of their ridiculous neighborhood pub there was always those few inches of distance that might as well stretch a mile. 

Melanie sat across from them, already thoroughly pissed. Basira was a little worried about her, but not brave enough to say anything about it. Daisy was already planning her own brand of tough love intervention. Maybe they could go kill something together and bond that way. Like Wolverine. She was shoving greasy chips into her mouth, some sauce dribbling down her chin. Tim sat next to her, loudly trying to tell the funniest joke, failing. His eyes glinted strangely in the light. Just a little deranged. No, wait, he had been dead by then. She kept forgetting. The image of Tim in the memory faded, replaced by Martin. Martin, trying not to take up too much space, having purposefully taken the spot farthest away from Jon. Afraid, always. It was too late now. 

Jon sat next to Daisy, on the other side from Basira. Daisy would have liked to say that she was the safe harbor he always found in an intimidating group, but it was the other way around. When she couldn’t be close to Basira she was always close to him. It wasn’t as if he could protect her from anything, but having everybody who she needed to protect close at hand always made her feel better. Like having both your wandering, sticky fingered toddlers within eyesight. So she always drifted to him, and he always let her, even when he and Martin wouldn’t stop eyefucking from across the table. 

Why she did it - who knows. Who cares. Maybe she had been drunk at the time too. But she slung an arm around Jon’s shoulders, a more public display of affection that she usually ever made, and let her head rest on his shoulder. She didn’t even remember why they were all out, why Jon had dragged himself away from work and Martin had gotten over himself enough for them all to go out together. But she remembered this - the scratch of Jon’s blazer against her cheek, the way Melanie had teased the lovebirds. Daisy had been so embarrassed that she had straightened, ripping herself away from that precious warmth and softness. Basira had teased her about it too, stumbling home, but she had found it sweet. Daisy had denied everything. 

Why hadn’t she done it again? If she knew then what she knew now, she’d have spent that entire night with her nose pressed into Jon’s jacket, fuck everything else. She’d have put her arm around Basira. She’d have eaten every sweet and every greasy, fat dripping hamburger in the pub. 

But only one person knew the future, and he so rarely told. Daisy wasn’t so lucky. All she could do was make the most of the present. 

And so Daisy, in infinite regret, kept the corpse of her best friend in her truck, hoping he would wake up. But he never quite did. Not in any way that mattered, like that single moment of vulnerability would have mattered. 

But she didn’t have much time for regret, anyway. 

  
  
  


“Lady! The truck’s veering! Lady!”

Daisy startled awake, yet again, and cursed. Jon was right, having felt the truck veer of course, and Daisy quickly wretched it back on track. She exhaled and inhaled steadily, desperately wanting some coffee or Red Bull or _something_ to keep her awake in this infinite black night. 

“You’re a terrible driver,” Jon said coldly. “If you’re going to kill me don’t do it through _negligence._ ”

“Would you like to drive?” Daisy snapped back.

Jon’s expression cleared and smoothed, a thin veneer of indifference and calm appraisal. “If you’re too tired, I should. A few hours of lost sleep is the equivalent to three drinks, you know. I can drive for a few hours wherever you want as you nap in the back. I think that’s a very good idea. You should consider it.”

Asshole. Smarmy asshole. “Good fuckin’ try,” Daisy grunted. She waved a hand absently, remembering too late that Jon couldn’t see it. “Talk to me, keep me awake.”

“I thought you said I asked too many questions.”

“Fuck off and just talk.”

“Can’t do both.” Jon looked down at his hands. He had been playing Cat’s Cradle with the rope, stretching it between lithe pianist fingers. Martin had confided in Daisy, very much against her will, that he liked those fingers best. The only illumination was the truck’s headlights, the night otherwise completely dark, but it had to be even more boring for him. Usually, he seemed to prefer silence. Early on, Daisy had tried talking to him, but he never responded, so she just stopped. They both seemed to like it better that way. “I’m...I didn’t know you could get bored of terror, but I am, so there’s that. I’ve tried to think of reasons that this is happening, but I just keep spinning myself in circles. I - I piss people off, but I don’t think I’ve ever pissed anybody off badly enough to _kidnap_ me. I don’t have any money, so - so not that. Or any living family, really. Nobody would give a shit about me if I died, actually - shit, I’m not supposed to say that, very many people would look everywhere for me if I died. All the time. My, uh, girlfriend, is a - uh, media person -”

“God, you’re pathetic,” Daisy said fondly. 

“Fuck you!” Jon paused a beat, chest heaving. “Also. Also, I’ve been - trying not to think about this, but - this car is strange.”

“Yes, it’s a truck. I know we don’t really have them in Britain.”

“I’m sitting in a passenger seat. On the right side. I don’t think we’re in Britain,” Jon said, in a very small voice. “What’s going on? Please, just - please.”

Daisy took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. Pavement chased itself, and cacti whipped past her vision. A figure loomed on the horizon, an abandoned car, and she carefully avoided it. “You’re having memory problems. Not often, just sometimes. You’ve been having light sensitivity problems lately, and sunglasses are hard to come by these days, so you have to keep the blindfold on. When you have memory problems you get confused and wander, and it’s dangerous out here, so sometimes I have to make sure you can’t wander off. That’s why you were tied up. You’re violent sometimes. I have to protect myself, and you. We’re travelling to try to meet up with our friends, so we can cure - you. That answers your questions?”

“Liar,” Jon said, quickly and confidently. “You’re lying.”

A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah? Why do you say that?”

“I just - your story doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t it?”

Jon was silent. After a long moment, as the truck bumped on a pothole, he said, “It doesn’t. It just doesn’t. And - and you say I ask too many questions, but you ask a lot yourself. Something’s wrong. I feel - there’s something on the road.”

With no hesitation, Daisy skidded the truck to a stop. It was still too dark for her to see anything, but Daisy had learned a very long time ago to trust Jon’s intuition. She kept the car idling, but reached into the back and withdrew her shotgun. She shoved it into Jon’s tied hands, ignoring the way he squeaked. 

“Protect the car. I’ll go check it out.”

“I - what’s going to protect _you_?”

It was melodramatic, and Jon couldn’t see it, but Daisy let her jaw gape in a smile. Her elongated canines, as long and sharp as her knuckle, dripped drool. “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know how to shoot a gun!”

“It’s easy.” Daisy swung the door open, hopping out of the giant truck. “Point and shoot.”

Normally she would say aim, but - well. 

He could take care of himself. Well, he couldn’t, but he wouldn’t die. If she was gone less than ten minutes. If she was gone over ten minutes he might die. But all that meant was that Daisy couldn’t afford to lose. 

It was hard not to feel just a little like a cowboy, striding down the abandoned desert highway under the midnight moon. Cars littered the asphalt - some normal looking, some clearly combusted, some crumpled like a tin can. She could see the faint outline of long rotted corpses inside some of the cars. Others, the ones without doors, were empty. She didn’t look too hard. There was a thick stench of death overlaying this part of the interstate, and as Daisy continued walking she finally began to hear the soft sounds of crunching. It was wet. 

Daisy whistled sharply, a high and low tone. The sound of crunching stopped, replaced by heaving pants. Sometimes they scared easy and ran at the first sound of human life. Sometimes they didn’t. It seemed like this one was the latter, and as Daisy kept walking a shadowy figure finally emerged from the gloom. Or maybe Daisy’s own eyesight had sharpened, the dark taking on a strangely different shade. 

If she focused, the sight sharpened even more. A monster sat in the middle of the interstate, with a gaping jaw and sagging stomach. Its face was a blank mask, marred only by black pits, and its body was silvery and translucent. It was sitting on a pile of bodies, tearing off limbs and attempting to stuff them down its throat. But, as Daisy stood still and watched, she saw that it was almost unsuccessful. Its throat seemed to be the size of a pin, and it had to rip the limbs in the smallest pieces to even swallow them. Its appetite was voracious, but it never seemed satisfied. 

It froze when it saw her too. Panting deeply, with a wet, glistening sound, its black pits of eyes fixed on her. Daisy, without breaking eye contact, slowly stripped out of her jeans and underwear. She didn’t have much clothing, and couldn’t afford to ruin it. 

Then Daisy howled, and shifted into something far scarier than a hungry ghost, and her experience was simplified into a series of abstract shapes and the overwhelming desire to hunt and eat and kill. 

Daisy lunged. 

  
  
  


“Was it coyotes?”

“Was what coyotes?”

“What I sensed on the highway.” Jon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Is it safe to be out here at night?”

“No,” Daisy said, almost cheerfully. She had Uriah Heap playing, echoing through the still night, and her stomach was full. It was hard not to be cheerful. She even felt less tired. “But I’m a lot scarier than anything out here. Don’t worry.”

“Why on earth would that statement worry me,” Jon muttered sarcastically, slumping in his seat. Almost to himself, he muttered, “What I don’t understand is how I knew something was out there...perhaps I heard howling, but it registered only subconsciously?”

That was Jon, alright. Always doing his best Sherlock Holmes impression, always thrusting himself towards the wrong answer. Daisy rolled her eyes, rubbing the fabric of the shirt she had hastily slapped back on between her thumb and forefinger. There was a hole in it. She couldn’t sew at all. Normally she had Jon do it, but - but that would have to wait. 

Well, there was technically no point in answering his questions, but it was either tell him the answer or have him throw increasingly stupid theories out there, so Daisy decided to be mangnamious just this one time.

“You’re omniscient. That’s how you knew.”

“You don’t have to make fun of me,” Jon groused, attempting to cross his arms but finding it difficult with his wrists still tied together. “Maybe the wind carried the smell of coyotes -”

Well. She tried. Daisy rolled her eyes, and switched out the cassette for the Rolling Stones. Long fingers of pink and red were beginning to spill over the horizon, although dawn was still a fair few hours away, and Daisy knew that they would have to stop for the day soon. She had overslept in the morning, and their travel time would be all fucked up now. If they were even going in the right direction. Usually Jon navigated, but - well. 

She passed a green sign that read JEFFERSON, 30 MI. 30 miles...what was that in kilometers...whatever. She was going 70 mph, so that was, like, half an hour. Normally she would go out of her way to avoid it, but Jon still needed to eat and they were running low on food. That, and the needle in her gas tank was creeping lower and lower. 

“We’re stopping soon,” Daisy said shortly. “In a town. I should probably leave you in the car…”

She normally did. It wasn’t like he was in any state to appreciate civilization, and they couldn’t afford for him to be recognized. It wasn’t difficult to mark either of them as Avatars, but an unsurprising amount of monsters and humans both had a bone to pick with the Archivist. There was an enclave of humans a while back, one of the few she had seen, that wanted to worship him, and - no thanks. 

“No!” Jon burst out, expression taut. “I mean, please don’t. I won’t scream or anything or make noise. I just - my legs are _killing_ me. And I need a shower. Badly.”

“You aren’t getting a shower.” The plumbing didn’t exactly work. It had been sponge baths for months.

“You know, it’s bad enough you kidnapped me, do you have to be _cruel_?” Jon spat. “All you do is lie and make fun of me and stop me from being hygienic. And - and your music is awful!”

“I’m not trying to make fun of you,” Daisy said, after a second’s hesitation. “And my music isn’t bad.” She thought it was pretty badass, actually.

“Tying me up. Blindfolding me. Threatening to kill me. Putting a weird prosthetic on my hand that I can’t get off. Lying to me about the year. Giving me a gun that I have no idea how to even use.” Jon ticked her sins off on his fingers, objectively in a very bitchy way for his interpretation of the situation. “Dumping me in another country. Refusing to tell me what country. Making up this bullshite story about you getting me medical treatment. If you’re going to lie, at least do a better job of it. This is just - what’s the point of this? I don’t understand.”

Daisy was silent for a long second. What could she do, point at the giant eye in the sky? She knew Jon. He didn’t believe a single goddamn thing without proof. What could she do to convince him if she couldn’t take the blindfold off? If she was in his situation, she’d have ripped off her captor’s face by now. 

“...America.”

“What?”

“We’re in America. New Mexico, I think. Maybe Texas by now.”

Jon was silent for a long second. He tried to hide it, but Daisy could smell the fear on him. It was raw and salty, and filled the entire cab of the truck. 

After a long second where he cleared his throat and forced his heart rate down from a jackrabbit pace, Jon said, “If you want me to believe that you haven’t kidnapped me, let me use a cell phone.”

“There’s no cell phones in America,” Daisy said, aiming for something a bit more believable than _there are no cell phones anywhere_ but falling disastrously short into the blatant lie category. 

“I’m going to die,” Jon whispered. 

Okay, so that didn’t help. Daisy wished Martin was here. He’d probably have found a way to make Jon trust him by now. Basira too. Maybe even Melanie. 

But if Martin was here, then they wouldn’t have gotten into this mess. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They were in America because Jon said so. 

They had been in...Wales, at the time. It was exactly as rural as they both preferred, the countryside devoid of literally everything but sheep and the occasional monster. Both made good snacks for Daisy. 

They had been on the road for months before that, trying to find a place they could settle for more than a few weeks. Staying too long in one place never worked. And although most of Daisy loved the Hunt, loved the call of the open road, loved finding her own way, it just wasn’t safe for Jon. And another part of Daisy had always loved the quiet, simple life too. She was more than an Avatar. 

They had played at being farmers for a while. Daisy kept a few cows safe, enough for them to have milk, and Jon had proved adept at spinning wool from the few sheep they found. It wasn’t bad. Maybe even a little nice. 

Days had no meaning, but it felt like a very long ago now that Daisy stepped into their small cottage and shucked her mud boots. Jon had been sitting at the table, quiet and still, listening to the wind blow outside. Sometimes he played with his fingers, and he did repetitive tasks sometimes, but that was it. He didn’t talk. Mostly. 

Daisy made them dinner. Stew with vegetables from the garden, potatoes squeezed from the dry soil. They ate it at that wooden table, Daisy carefully spooning stew into Jon’s mouth and cleaning up where it spilled. 

She had almost been done with the bowl when Jon’s hand pushed the spoon away. Daisy remembered frowning, wondering if he wasn’t hungry. 

Then he spoke. First time in weeks. 

“We have to go to America.”

Daisy started, almost spilling the valuable food. “What? Jon, what did you say?”

But he didn’t say anything else about it, even when she begged and pleaded for more details. They couldn’t just _go._ Airplanes didn’t exist anymore, and ships barely did. 

But she knew where Salasea was. He would help them. It wasn’t impossible. It was just completely insane. Uproot their lives, just off a sentence from Jon?

Daisy packed that night, and they left the next day. 

They had all grown separated, afterwards. Daisy didn’t know where Basira and the others were. The only reason why she even had Jon was because she had been gripping his wrist as he destroyed the world and catapulted them all everywhere. Just luck. If you could call it luck. 

If it wasn’t for Jon - Jon, sometimes craning his head and telling her when an upcoming town was infested by a plague of worms she couldn’t defeat, sometimes shoving a foul tasting concoction of herbs down her throat and making her swallow when she had gotten deathly ill with a sickness nobody knew, giving her somebody to _protect_ \- she’d be dead by now. If it wasn’t for her, he’d have died a very long time ago. 

He fed her more information in slow drips over the upcoming months. As they snuck through Cardiff, he said that America was where they would find the others. As they hid inside a cargo hold as the howling of some sea monster shook the ship, he grasped her hand and told her that the others were working on reversing the ritual. As they stood over the lip of the Grand Canyon, Daisy debating on whether or not to release Jon from his blindfold just to see this jaw dropping sight, he told her that he was the only one who could successfully reverse what happened. 

He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t capable of that anymore. And he didn’t control when he got the information, or even how he could impart it. It was possible that he knew everything about everything, and just didn’t know how to express it to her. 

Walking away from a hole in the world, they even had a conversation. 

“Why do you keep me alive?”

“I owe you,” Daisy had said. 

But Jon had cocked his head, as if he didn’t understand. “I destroyed the world.”

“So?”

Jon was silent for a long second, so long that Daisy had already considered the conversation over, when he spoke again. “Orlando, Florida. We’ll find the others there. I can make up for it, there.”

“There’s nothing to make up for, Jon.”

But that was the last he spoke until tonight, and Daisy couldn’t get any more answers out of him. 

  
  
  


Jefferson, New Mexico (probably): population 500. A nice place to live. 

Nobody lived there now. Its five streets, lined with sun bleached false fronts and businesses with wooden porches, creaked in the wind. Dawn was breaking, just enough that Daisy could make out the names on the signs as she dodged the abandoned cars. Sometimes when driving they came up against a traffic jam of people attempting to evacuate, although Jon was usually pretty good at steering her away from those. They always stopped eventually, when people realized that there was nowhere to evacuate to.

The particular brand of small-town kitsch was shared between England and the States, but the aesthetics were different. Some small English towns were trying their damndest to scream ‘quaint and homey and historic’’ as loudly as possible, the same way the American towns did, but there was something far more artificial about America’s attempt. None of the homes could be older than 1950, torn down and renovated, torn down and renovated. No matter how hard they tried to be historic or authentic, you always saw a McDonald’s eventually. 

That was America, Daisy figured - leave the past in the past. Co-op the aesthetic, the sense of nostalgia, and use it to brand your Instagram worthy luxury cupcake business. On some level, she respected it. Everything always seemed to be under construction, frozen in a moment in time. Desperately trying to fulfill this infinite empty space. It was hard not to feel just a little terrified, the way you could drive on a highway for eight hours and never get anywhere. It gave a certain sense of ominous anxiety. Maybe that was the Vast creeping its fingers into her. 

California hadn’t been so bad, gigantic but oddly cramped. She wasn’t looking forward to Texas. It would take fourteen hours to get across, under ideal conditions. Their conditions were far from ideal. _Fourteen hours_. At least there would finally be ranchland, and hopefully cows to snack on. 

Finally, finally, Daisy was able to let up on the gas and cruise into a gas station. The only stroke of luck they had the entire apocalypse was the fact that the gas stations, mysteriously, stayed full and almost overflowing with gas. Daisy suspected it had something to do with the Buried, but she tried to mind her own business about it. Once, during a frequent instance where she had run into some people who were taking a little bit longer to die, she had...seen how the oil was made. She had decided to stop thinking about it after that. 

Jon straightened up from where he was lying down in the back, frowning and turning his head around. He had given the impression of being asleep for the past half hour, but Daisy knew better than to believe that he could sleep like this. He was probably drafting plan after plan after plan in his sharp, relentless mind. She missed him. She missed her Jon, the kind who smiled small at her and clutched at her hand in the dark. She even missed the Jon she had grown used to, comfortable in his silence, and the way he would silently trace out a path on a worn paper map for them to tread. 

“Are we stopping? Where are we?”

“Gas station.” Daisy opened the door, sliding out and hopping the unnecessarily long distance down from the floor to the ground. “Stay here.”

“Why must I _always_ -”

She slammed the door, and the rest of his whining went muffled by the car door. She quickly filled up the car, and grabbed their five extra cans of gasoline before filling them up too. You never wanted to be out of gas out here. The oil smelleds strange, but she wasn’t going to analyze that too much. She wanted to be in and out of there - sometimes gas stations went up in flames, if the Desolation was feeling frisky that day, and Daisy never felt safe in one anymore. 

The convenience store was empty, and only half-full. The looting hadn’t been too bad...not enough people, likely...but fresh food that wasn’t grown by yourself was a thing of the past. Daisy hadn’t eaten an orange since the UK. Neither she nor Jon had been experiencing any symptoms of scurvy or malnutrition, not like some of the others they had met on the road. She wasn’t going to think too hard about that either. 

But food in a convenience store was made not to spoil. She grabbed a plastic bag and scooped Little Debbie snacks, hand pies, and canned soups into it. She stuffed as many tampons as she could under her arm, as well as what little first aid she could find, and lugged her armful of bounty back to the parking lot to store in the back of the truck. She kept three Hostess Snack Pies clutched in her first, and she opened the back door of the truck to deposit them in Jon’s lap. 

“Eat up.”

For the first time, he didn’t waste any time snarking or whining. He picked up the first one he felt - apple - and ripped it open with his teeth, not even bothering to stop and smell it or taste a little before cramming it in his mouth. He promptly gagged on it, spitting up a little bit into his hand before setting his mouth in a firm line and swallowing the rest anyway. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were hungry?”

Jon just scowled, ripping open the other one - cherry - and stuffing it down his throat too. “Didn’t figure you cared.”

The thin scar against his throat bobbed as he swallowed his food. 

“What can I say that will convince you that I’m just trying to keep you safe,” Daisy said, frustrated beyond measure. She didn’t blame him. She also knew that Jon needed a great deal of proof before believing anything. It wasn’t his fault. But that didn’t make it not obnoxious. 

Jon was silent for a long second, though if that was because he was thinking or because he was trying to get the food down his throat he wasn’t sure. 

“Remind me of your story again,” Jon said, as if he had forgotten. 

“You’re sick. I’m taking you to our friends so you can get better.”

“Why couldn’t we fly?”

“No planes.”

“Like how there’s no phones.”

“The world’s changed since you remember, Jon.” Daisy scuffed her foot on the pavement. “I would tell you, but I’m not sure you’d believe me.”

When Jon spoke it was clear that he had been mulling over the words for a while. “The entire way here I didn’t hear any traffic. At all. No other cars, no honks or beeps. And I don’t hear any other cars now. Or people talking.” His breath was coming a little faster, now, his muscles tense. “But we are really in the middle of nowhere. You can go on for hours on these country roads without seeing another soul, I heard. That’s probably it. And of course you wouldn’t want to take a plane, I’d rat you out for being a liar in a second. All the people in this town are probably just - just in bed or something.”

“You got it, Jon,” Daisy said quietly. “Everyone’s asleep. They’ll wake up in a few hours.” She took a deep breath, and carefully stepped back. “C’mon. Let’s go for a walk.” 

Jon stared in her direction, as if by waiting long enough in silence then he could catch her in a lie, but after a long moment of a staring contest that neither of them were going to win he reluctantly crawled clumsily out of the truck. Daisy reached out to help him down, but he jerked his elbow away from her the second she tried to touch it. 

His legs almost buckled when he stepped onto the pavement, and Jon bent down to rub some feeling in them as he leaned against the truck. Daisy settled for snacking on some of the beef jerky she had found, grimacing a little at the stale taste. Hopefully they would find a deer around soon. But that wouldn’t feed Jon, or it wouldn’t without a fire and a knife. She could cook it, but shamefully she never managed to contain herself long enough to save anything for him. He needed more protein...he couldn’t be eating right, but his face didn’t seem to show it. Maybe he didn’t need to eat either. Jon, as he was normally, wasn’t very capable of telling her if he was hungry, so she kept feeding him anyway. Just in case. 

With the way he had eaten those pies, he felt hunger now. Or maybe he had just thought that he should. When Daisy forgot to feel pain, she didn’t feel it. 

“We’re in a small town. There’s about four streets, all of them crowded with businesses. We’ll check out a few and see if there’s anything good in them.”

“Will they even be open?” Jon asked, massaging his undoubtedly cramped legs. 

It was almost cute. “We’ll manage.”

“You mean _steal_?” Jon looked up at the direction of her voice, horrified. “Did you even pay for that food?”

“There wasn’t exactly a cashier around to pay.”

Jon deflated a little bit, and Daisy realized that he had been hoping that a cashier would see the way he was blindfolded and tied up. “Whatever you do, don’t get me in trouble with the cops. I heard things about the American South. They’ll look at us and think _I_ kidnapped _you_.”

Some part of her bristled at the insult to police, after all this time, but a much more reasonable part of her didn’t think he was wrong. Or, at least, he wouldn’t be wrong, if cops still existed. But then they’d have very different problems. 

“You won’t get in trouble.” Daisy held out her arm in front of Jon. “Go ahead and take my arm.”

But he didn’t move, jaw set in a stubborn line. “I’m not touching you.”

“Jon. If you don’t have a guide you’ll wander off. I don’t have a cane for you.”

“Then take off the blindfold.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Oh, right,” Jon dripped sarcastically, “my _light sensitivity_.”

“Yes. It’s a major issue. If you don’t take my arm we’ll have to do it a different way, which you won’t like.”

Jon stepped back and pointedly turned away from her. 

What Daisy would not give for one of those little alarms you could fix to the belts of your senile grandparents that told you when they wandered off. But Daisy didn’t have that, didn’t really have any way of helping Jon in a dignified way that he deserved, so they were stuck with what they had. She sighed and withdrew her knife. Normal way it is, then. 

“Hold out your hands. I won’t touch you.”

He held out his hands expectantly, body tense. Daisy expertly wriggled her knife in and untied the rope that Jon hadn’t managed to pick apart in a few swift motions, and just like that Jon’s hands were free. They were rubbed red and raw, some parts oozing a little, and Daisy grimaced. They were running low on cream for that. The expression on his face when he felt his hands free and unimpeded was - it looked a little like the expression Jon used to make when Martin squeezed his hand, giddy relief, shock that he could have something so good. As if his hands had always been tied, and now they were free. 

Daisy looped a small section of the rope around her own wrist, tying it snugly against her slim wrist. It was available for easy loosening, if she needed to shift and slip it around her neck instead. She fixed the other end to Jon’s wrist, keeping a generous length of rope between them. Enough that she could guide him, but not so short that she was towing him. It had taken a lot of trial and error to get it right. But it gave them the maneuverability that she needed, and accommodated for the difficulty of navigating dangerous and uncertain terrain in the blindfold. She wished she could just take it off, but - well. It was better than the alternative. 

“Oh, come on!” Jon complained, immediately backing up to test the length of the rope. He didn’t get too far. “I’m not an animal!”

“I’m sorry. It’s this or touching me. Or staying in the car.”

Neither of the other two options appealed to him, so Jon just crossed his arms with a scowl. “Are you sure the town is _completely_ deserted? We’d look like weirdos if anybody saw us. The cops would ask questions.”

“No one will see us,” Daisy said, voice dull. If anybody did, they’d have far greater problems. “Come on, let’s go. If I tug on the rope it means you’re about to hit a kerb. When I pull it left or right it means that you should go in that direction if you want to avoid running into something. I’ll give you verbal warnings too. I won’t let you hurt yourself.”

“How kind,” Jon said frostily, but when she started walking he did too. He stuck closely to her at first, nervous even if he refused to admit it, but as they hit the sidewalk and continued down the street he relaxed enough to trail slightly behind her. She was a little worried he’d try to slip the lead, but even if he could find the truck again she had the keys to it in her pocket and he wasn’t capable of hotwiring a car. And if he tried to remove the blindfold now that he had his hands free - well, hopefully some part of him realized that she was serious when she said that he couldn’t take it off. She would find out soon enough. He wasn’t very good at attacking her. It was honestly a little pathetic. 

The town was...dusty. Worn and weathered. What had once been cute facades promoting vintage ice cream shoppes was sun-beaten and sagging, paint peeling, wood decomposing. Every town they had stepped into was a ghost town, of course, but something about the American Southwest embodied the principle more thoroughly than the UK ever had. The dust wore everything down, turned rocks into sand, and everything man made was fragile. There were plenty of tourist shops peddling memorabilia, and plenty of merchandise for the Grand Canyon. A pharmacy, which they would have to loot later, and a spa that was useless to her. Lots of shops advertising Native jewelry, and Daisy thought wistfully of how much Basira would love that. Daisy herself wasn’t one much for jewelry. 

But that SOUVENIRS OF THE WEST shop was promising. Daisy gently guided Jon into it, keeping an eye on him and verbally warning him about the three steps leading inwards, and if he was frustrated that she didn’t give him any more detail than that he didn’t show it. 

She was in desperate need of new clothes - her tank top and cargo pants were more thread than fabric - and she really wanted a hat and sunglasses. Daisy settled for unlooping the rope from her wrist and securing it around a pillar in the store. Last time she had let him wander around by himself in a store he had run into a den of beetles the size of her wolf form as they feasted on corpses, which had been absolutely no fun for anybody, and it wasn’t as if either of them could or wanted to have him participate in her shopping montage. 

“Stay here.”

“Again?” Jon tugged at the rope, scowling furiously. “You didn’t even break into here. The door was _open_.”

“Yep.” Maybe he would put it together by himself? 

“Help!” Jon yelled, excruciatingly loudly. “I need help!”

Silence. Daisy folded her arms and waited, raising an eyebrow. 

“Happy?”

“Not remotely.”

“Great. I’ll be back. Call me if you need me.”

Really, Daisy thought as she disappeared into the rows of light jackets and tacky t-shirts, it’s a miracle he hadn’t tried to escape yet. Jon had never quite learned helplessness. He was always the kind to scream and rage, or at least _try_. Maybe some part of him still remembered her? A subconscious familiarity. 

But she didn’t want to stay here too long. She skipped over the keychains and figurines and kiddy outdoor toys - mostly skipped over them, she nabbed a 3D puzzle that Jon might be able to complete even with the blindfold on - for favor of the coats, hiking equipment, and hats. She shrugged on a leather jacket, to protect against the oncoming cold, stuffed some good quality paracord and a compass in its pockets, and in a fit of weakness slid a cowboy hat on her head. She swapped out her shirt for a sturdier flannel, and found some loose jeans with plenty of pockets. She probably looked like a cowgirl. She felt...kind of cool. 

Basira could never find out about this. 

Actually, judging from the signage and tacky plates, they had crossed over into Texas a few hours ago. Just a few more states until Orlando. Just a few more states. 

The joke she had been telling Jon, even if he couldn’t understand, was that they were taking a family trip to Disneyworld. It always made her smile. The idea of stopping by tourist shops, buying tacky cowboy wear, road tripping the night and day away so they could visit Disneyworld...she would have liked to actually do it, in another life. With Basira and Martin. Fuck it, Melanie and Georgie too. Tim. They could be together. They _would_ be together again. 

But they weren’t even together now - as Daisy saw, when she returned to the entrance and saw a limp rope lying on the ground, and no Jon. 

She sighed and stripped out of her clothes. Idiot. 

Her wolf form, in its natural state, was about the size of a large horse and as terrifying as a demon. It had swirling red eyes, teeth as long as a forearm, and dark gray fur often matted with blood. No human had ever looked into the wolf’s eyes and stopped themselves from screaming. No human had survived her. She knew that she looked like a hellhound, ripped free of its chains to wreak havoc on Earth. Sometimes, when the days grew too long and her mind grew snappish and cannibalistic, she found herself shifting into wolf form more and more. Just to feel it. Just to feel safe. What could hurt her, like this? 

Seconds later, a giant wolf bounded out of the shop, nose close to the ground. Impressions and shapes swirled around her, but the scent picked up from the rope might as well be bright paint leading a streak down the street. Confused, curling, and meandering. Daisy caught the scent of other things too, far more putrid - corruption and rot, evil and malice - but that wasn’t important right now. What was important was the Hunt. 

She sniffed deeper, trailing the scent. She knew Jon’s scent. He smelled like Eye, like old books, like the horrible realization that you just found out something you would have been better off not knowing. Like eavesdropping, like feeling watched, like someone you once thought was a friend telling you what everyone really thinks of you. But this Jon’s trail just smelled like sweat, leather, and rope. 

The trail stopped a very short distance from the shop. Daisy avoided the burn of the hot street on her paws, sticking to the shadowed sides, and it was only through wriggling under a large porch of a dilapidated house that her nose found him. 

How had he even gotten here? No matter. He was obviously intending on hiding from Daisy, waiting for her to leave. His scent lingered over the door - had he banged on it, pleading for help? - before leading under the porch. It was a bit too tight a fit for Daisy’s full size, so she concentrated a little and shrunk down to the size of just a very large dog. She wiggled through the rotting floorboards, barking softly. 

“Hello? Is anyone there?” Jon called. Daisy yipped in response. “Okay, nice dog. Do _not_ attack. Wow, I hope you don’t have any puppies hiding around here.”

Daisy, infernal hellbeast, just yipped again, slightly more amused. It was hard to stay mad at him while a wolf. If something wasn’t prey, it was a friend, and Jon was _not_ prey. Pack. She nuzzled her snout into his shirt, lightly biting it, and began towing him out of the porch. 

“Ouch, ouch, okay! You’re trained, I can see that.” He reached out a hand and tangled it in her fur, hand pressing down. “Very, very shaggy dog. Very big dog. If...if you’re a dog.”

It was only once they stumbled out of the porch that Daisy saw that the blindfold was still on. He hadn’t even tried to remove it. Why? Why was he not trying to take it off every time she turned her back? Some part of him had to remember, had to know how dangerous it was. Or maybe he trusted her. 

Daisy stopped them in front of the house, almost on the sidewalk, tail wagging furiously. Jon clutched a little closer to her fur, and she let him. 

“I don’t suppose your owner’s about, huh?” he asked. Daisy just barked once. “Thought not. Nobody seems to be around.” Suddenly, Jon sat down on the ground hard. He bent his knees in, resting them on his forehead, apparently exhausted. Daisy whined, tapping her feet. “I’m a coward and an idiot. Run off by myself in the middle of the _freaking_ apocalypse, how smart.” Daisy barked in alarm. Jon just looked miserable. “Yeah, it’s obviously the apocalypse, I’m not _that_ dumb. The air smells like ash. Always, always ash. It’s the first thing I freaking noticed. At first I thought that we were just near a volcano, but when I learned we were in America...no. But it’s better if that crazy bint underestimates me. Everyone always underestimates me.” Daisy licked his face, forgiving him for being rude. Jon huffed a laugh, scratching her neck and giving her good pats. “You too, I think. But she should have lied better. Maybe I would have believed her if they hadn’t been so _obvious._ You know what the worst one was, Mister Doggy? Pretending I have friends. I don’t have friends.” Daisy barked and licked his face again. “Okay, okay, you can be my friend.”

It wasn’t safe out here, and self-pity had never looked good on Jon. Daisy barked lightly, tugging Jon forward, and Jon stumbled upwards still clutching the ruff of her fur. She pressed onwards, back to where they came, and Jon kept his hand fisted in her fur. She could have been a guide dog in another life, probably. 

“Are you taking me somewhere?” Jon asked, not frightened so much as cautious. “Are you owned, or a stray? You don’t seem to have a collar. But you’re comfortable with people.” He scratched her neck a little as Daisy pulled them safely forward, barking a little when they came to a kerb. “Guess your family’s all gone. Mine too. No friends, no family. I guess nobody would care if I died.” Daisy barked. “Sure, you would.”

The heavy smell of Daisy herself lingered on the clothes she had dumped in front of the tourist trap, and Daisy carefully deposited Jon in front of it before wriggling away from his grip. She turned away from Jon’s lost expression and shifted back, quickly throwing the clothing back on. Her vision shifted, colors and shapes resolved themselves into recognizable objects and meanings, and her full range of thoughts returned to her. 

It was almost impressive, how much better she was getting at controlling it. It used to be that she could only shift when she felt bloodlust, and the wolf was an unmanageable animal. Now...maybe Daisy had been tamed, in her own way. In one, very specific way. 

“Mister Dog?” Jon called out. “Where did you go?”

“She’s a girl, actually,” Daisy said dryly, and Jon jumped a foot in the air. “There you are. Don’t run off again. If it wasn’t for the dog you’d have been eaten.”

“Great. It’s you.” Jon crossed his arms, scowling again. “Guess the dog was a traitor after all.”

“She just wanted you to be safe.” 

“Where’s her family?” Jon asked, resigned. Almost as if he didn’t want to know the answer. Maybe the thought was sad to him: one dog, living all by itself, trying to eke out a living in a parched land. She didn’t blame him. It wasn’t always fun. “Are they gone too?”

“I bet she just got out,” Daisy said evenly. The sensation, of having eavesdropped and heard something you shouldn’t, was a painfully familiar one in this new word. “She’ll find them again soon.”

“Really,” Jon said, and this time she could recognize the tightly hidden sarcasm laced into the words. “It’s gotten lighter, I think. Dawn’s come. I still haven’t heard anybody. I suppose they’re still at church?”

“You got it,” Daisy said, picking up the rope and winding it around her wrist. “They’re all worshiping the Lord. You know these small towns.” She sighed. “Jon, I want to respect how you don’t want me to touch you, but if you’re going to run off and get eaten by - get lost then I’m going to have to hold your hand.”

It was annoying for both of them, but preferable to the annoyance of Jon getting devoured and them never being able to save the world. She just couldn’t be relaxed about this. 

But Jon just stared at her, face blank and inscrutable, posture tense and coiled. He seemed as if he was permanently on the edge of pouncing, or of curling up into a ball and protecting his head, and because he couldn’t decide which one he was always caught in the awkward space between both. Ready to both fight and flight, ready to snap and surrender. A cornered animal that still fought even as its back was against the wall. 

Daisy had always been a fighter. She would never accept a bad situation. Basira had always been zen about it, reasoning that if you can’t change something then you accept it. They had fit together like that. But Jon was both, and neither, and it tore him apart. 

She wanted to give him the choice. He wasn’t a criminal, technically, and she wasn’t a cop anymore. But she had never held much faith in sentiment either. And it would probably make it easier for him if he didn’t have a choice. 

“You can tie the rope to my hand again,” Jon said gruffly. “I won’t - I won’t slip out again.” Went unsaid was just that he didn’t think it would work. 

“Not good enough.” Daisy stepped forward and grabbed Jon’s arm, ignoring the way he stayed frozen where he stood and tensed tightly, and looped her arm around his. He strained out of her grip as much as he physically could without moving. “Don’t be a brat about this or you aren’t leaving the car again until we get there.”

“Where - where are we going?”

And for the first time, Daisy let herself smile. “Disneyworld.”

  
  
  
  


The sad truth is this: Jon was Daisy’s best friend. 

For a while she would have said that Basira was her best friend, except she wouldn’t have said that. She would have said that Basira is her partner, stop asking personal questions, fuck off. Partner as in cop partner. She wasn’t a fucking dyke. This haircut doesn’t mean anything. The anger in my eyes doesn’t mean anything. Being a hyper aggressive, masculine presenting woman in a job that emblemizes the peak of masculinity just behind being a soldier doesn’t mean anything. They put Basira on all of the pamphlets to show how diverse and not racist and not misogynist they are but Daisy was always behind the camera, because she knew how to act in order to be accepted and that involved drinking a lot of beer. Daisy had to be accepted to be able to do the things she wanted to do, e.g. kill people. So she played the part of the woman who had stamped out every bit of femininity left, until she even sacrificed her body to that hunger, and she got what she wanted. The ability to do whatever she wanted. 

Daisy, actually, secretly, cared a _lot_ about what people thought of her. She cared if they thought she was an animal (she was, these days, but that wouldn’t get her put in jail, so…). She cared if they thought that _this_ beating was unjustified or if _that_ suspect hadn’t deserved what she did to them. Daisy very much did not want to go to jail. She always kept everything she did to the bare level of functionality, of plausible deniability. She never did anything that was out of bounds, and if she did that, then she made sure she wasn’t caught. You couldn’t get as far as she did without being careful. 

The truth was this: that from the minute Daisy found out what sectioning meant, she had gunned for that. She didn’t care if she was the one stuck killing vampires afterwards. The promise of being able to do whatever she wanted, with no oversight, with no wagging fingers or moralistic tones...it was what she had spent her entire life wanting. 

She almost joined the military. But the knew the rates of sexual assault there, and there were far too many ranks of people telling you what to do. A cop in London? Overworked, understaffed, everybody willing to turn a blind eye so long as the job got done? It was perfect.

Everybody had thought ten year old Daisy telling her entire class that she wanted to be a copper was _so cute_.

All this to say: people were good at noticing that there was something a little off about Daisy. Not enough to land her in prison, so she didn’t actually give a shit, but very few people mistook her for a normal woman. Basira knew, she just didn’t care. Jon knew, but there was something off about him too, so he enjoyed the company. She was reasonably sure that once you start fucking someone three times a week and you profess your undying love for each other you aren’t exactly friends anymore so, like, Basira’s out as friend material. So that leaves Jon. 

It was almost embarrassing. Nobody at work had thought twice about it - yeah, he’s a freak, she’s a freak, they work. Martin would have been jealous if he had been around. She wouldn’t have bothered if Martin was around. But she was lonely, and he was lonely, and she only felt safe when she was breathing next to him, so one thing led to another. And Daisy made a friend for the third time in her life. Second friend she didn’t end up killing. Maybe she was on a roll. 

It was something she had almost forgotten, what ten year old Daisy had told the class. She had known, even back then, that she wanted to hurt people. But there had been another reason too, the reason she _had_ told the class. It wasn’t law, justice, or order. She had wanted to protect people. When Daisy cared, really cared, she sunk your teeth into you and never let go. An animal to the end. 

Had that been true? Or did she just want to believe the best of a child? Has her motive ever been so innocent as wanting to save people from harm? 

Some part of Daisy couldn’t help but think that if she protected Jon, that if she helped the helpless, that if she was a perfect friend to him, then that would redeem her. Jon was going to redeem the world, after all. If she helped, then that was helping the world, and it would wipe away the sins of her past. Maybe if she could do this, then she wasn’t going to go to hell. 

“So do you kidnap people, like, for fun, or is there a point?”

“Do you talk for fun or is there a point?”

Jon pouted, lying down on his sleeping mat. Daisy was tending the fire, cooking the scraps of deer she had struck down and managed to save for Jon. Her stomach was warm and full, and the heat of the fire mixed with the heat of the Texan desert at high noon made her sleepy. 

The drive away from town had been uneventful. Jon sulked, Daisy drove, they listened to Led Zeppelin. If she didn’t look at the upset expression on Jon’s face, or the intent way he solved the puzzle box, it could have been an ordinary day in their unordinary life. Eventually she had begun growing too tired to continue driving - which meant too tired to fight any monsters if they wanted to eat them - which meant that they were stopping for the day. Daisy was used to being nocturnal, and even if Jon didn’t know it his body was too. 

“You’re hardly the first person to tell me I talk too much,” Jon dismissed. It was almost funny, the way he wasn’t scared of her at all. Because she was a woman? Or because his body trusted her, even if his mind didn’t? “Nobody ever listens to what I have to say. Even when I’m right.”

“Let me guess,” Daisy said dryly. God help her, some part of her was enjoying this. Just hearing Jon’s voice again… “None of the other little white boys and girls at Oxford wanted to listen to your Bigfoot theories.”

“How did you know I went to Oxford?” Jon asked sharply, before shaking his head. “Never mind, you’re probably a stalker. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I didn’t need them.”

“Didn’t need them to respect you.” Daisy took the meat off the fire, carefully plating it on the tin camping plate and pressing it into Jon’s hands. He sat up, fingers searching the plate, before picking up the meat and carefully popping it in his mouth. His expression read that he wished that it was spiced or seasoned. You weren’t the only one, buddy. “You’ll never be good enough for them, you know.”

You’ll never be white enough, straight enough, normal enough, Daisy didn’t say. It wasn’t really her place. But he knew what she meant, and he chewed his meat furiously. 

He wasn’t tied to the hitch of the truck again, but that was just because they were in the middle of nowhere again and even he wasn’t that stupid. Daisy had sternly warned him against taking off the blindfold again, but for the time being they were both relaxing around the fire. It almost could have been a camping trip. If it wasn’t for, uh, everything. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Jon said quietly. “I don’t need anyone but myself.”

Daisy lay on her back, arms crossed behind her head, staring at the brightly lit sky. At least she had this. She never had it in London, this infinite expanse of blue and sky. She wished Jon could have it too. Pity about the giant, creepy eye. “What if I need you?” Daisy said quietly. 

Jon was silent, almost uncomfortably. After a long minute he said, “I’m...flattered, but -”

Daisy groaned. “I’m a dyke, shut up.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence. “That’s a relief.”

Yikes. Had he been afraid of that this entire time…? “Sorry,” Daisy said gruffly. “Should have mentioned.”

“Yes, quite.”

“I’ve never really, uh, admitted it before,” Daisy said, uncertainly. 

“Good for you,” Jon said flatly, unsympathetic to her gay awakening. 

“I have a girlfriend.”

“That’s nice.”

“Her name is Basira. She’s hot.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Long silence, as they both picked at their food. Eventually Jon put his bowl aside and curled up on his mat, facing away from her. His hair was growing long and matted, and Daisy knew that she would have to cut it for him soon. If Georgie was here, she could do a good job, but all he had was her, so she would have to be enough. 

“Will you be here when I wake up?” Jon whispered, curled into a ball away from her. 

Daisy sighed. “I can’t exactly leave you alone.”

“...okay.”

He sounded almost relieved. 

They didn’t talk much after that, and Jon must have fallen asleep eventually. He didn’t snore, just fell still, huddled into a tight ball. Daisy tried to fall asleep too, but whenever she did drift off her dreams were uneasy and tense. 

Eventually, after a particularly bad nightmare, she woke up to find herself a wolf. She huffed slightly - this happened whenever she dreamed she was eating somebody - and climbed into the cab of the truck, turned around in a circle a few times, and went back to sleep. 

She woke up to the sound of humming, and bags rustling. Daisy didn’t move, or open her eyes, content in basking in the Texas sun. But there was something just a little off about the humming, just a little strange. There was an odd quality of radio static to it, something that she may not even have picked up with human ears. 

Then Jon began speaking. 

“Where did you _go_ ? I can’t _See_ you. All bloody like that, we’d think you’d leave traces...but you’re invisible. Where are _you_?”

Daisy stayed very, very still. 

Footsteps echoed closer to the bed of the truck. Long, thin fingers tapped against the metal sides. “Oh. A _puppy_.”

Daisy looked up, cocking her head. Jon was looking over the side of the truck bed, blindfold slipped down to his neck. His eyes were….his eyes…

“Have you Seen Alice Tonner, puppy?” Jon asked, but his voice wasn’t his voice and that wasn’t Jon. “She’s - well, we aren’t quite sure what she looks like. Hoarse, smoker’s voice, cut-throat little knives for hearts. The Hunt hides its claws well. But you’re a very cute puppy. Would you know?”

Daisy barked, fur bristling, rising to her feet. The thing pretending to be Jon reached out a hand, maybe intending to pet her, but she snapped at it. It pouted, holding its hand close to its chest. 

“Rude. We can’t let Alice Tonner live, puppy. She wants to take away everything that’s ours. That’s everything. Everything is ours. You’re ours, too. Even _Canis lupus familiaris_...but that’s not what you are, is it? You’re not quite that. Too big for that…what are you, puppy?”

Then the thing that was inside Jon reached out both hands, and Daisy leapt with teeth bared, snarling with claws out. 

She could be a very big wolf, when she wanted. 

Too big, and she could hurt Jon. Too small, and that thing could hurt her. She settled for just big enough that she could knock Jon to the ground, and promptly sat on him. More accurately, she dumped her considerable body mass on top of his head, covering his eyes, and Jon crumpled. 

It wasn’t even a fight. Some part of her gnashed its teeth at that. Another part prayed in relief. Most of her was just focused, focused on keeping the Beholding out of Jon, focusing on gently grabbing the bottom hem of his shirt and pulling it back over his eyes. He stayed crumpled onto the cracked ground, as Daisy covered his face so thoroughly with the t-shirt she worried about him being able to breathe, before she shifted back to human and finished re-tying the blindfold. 

Hardly even a fight. Good. If it came down to Daisy against the godlike entity that had stolen the world...well, she didn’t like its odds. Not when she had something to fight for. 

It was early afternoon, judging from the sun. Enough time to get a little more sleep in. Some actual rest, instead of disquieting nightmares. 

She stayed awake instead, shifting to wolf worm and lying in the dirt, keeping watch over Jon’s prone form for the rest of the day until the ground consumed the sun and night reigned again. 

  
  
  


Jon didn’t wake up. 

He opened his eyes. He moved again. He ate when she fed him, he moved when she guided him, and he sat in the passenger seat of the truck as they ate concrete in a frantic chase towards the finish line. But he didn’t wake up again. 

Hadn’t she wanted this to happen? Wanted Jon to go back to normal, where he didn’t annoy or aggravate or stress her out, even put himself in danger. She had the Jon she was used to back, complacent and calm, letting her lead him. It was easier this way, for the both of them. 

If she put a map in his lap, he traced their route. If she asked him if there was any danger ahead, he could shake his head or frown. He didn’t need any help with the bathroom. He slept long, placid dreams. He didn’t try to take the blindfold off. It was who they were. 

They didn’t talk. They didn’t have anything to say to each other. At least, that was what Daisy would like to think. But she did find herself talking to him, in those long drives when the road began to hypnotize her. In those stolen moments, when she let despair take over her, when she shook him and begged him to respond.

A very long time ago, before she understood why Jon wasn’t responding to her, she had slapped him on the face. He hadn’t reacted, just rolled with the motion and refused to open his eyes. He didn’t defend himself, didn’t yell at her, didn’t spit venom. Daisy had been surprised by the burst of self-hatred that bloomed in her chest. She couldn’t hurt someone that helpless. She’d have to put herself down, give herself the same treatment that she gave every other monster. There would be nothing distinguishing her from a serial killer, if she hurt people who didn’t deserve it. 

Then she had tried to force his eyes open, confused as to why he was keeping them shut. He had screamed, the first reaction she had seen out of him, and tried to push her away with weak arms. It took Daisy an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that sight hurt him, that the visual input overwhelmed his mind. The blindfold had made a quick appearance after that. When she started getting hints that the Beholding could see through Jon’s eyes, it stayed on. When Jon started trying to hurt her without it, she started tying his hands together. 

Martin would know what to do. He’d know how to be kind, how to be good. Basira would know what was wrong with him, put her big brain to work in solving the problem. All Daisy had ever known was how to hurt, and how to protect. Maybe this was the one thing she could do. So long as he needed him, she could stay. 

“I have a theory, you know,” she told him, as they chased moonlight through Abilene, which, by the way, fucking sucked. Texas sucked. “You’re an Avatar of the Beholding. It can see through your eyes. It can possess you too, if it can get that visual connection. That must be a _lot_. An infinite mind, crammed inside your little brain.”

Jon didn’t say anything, obviously, but she was getting a sense for the music he liked by how relaxed he seemed to be. He liked Kansas a lot, it seemed. 

“That’s bad, obviously. The Hunt protects me, but it can’t really protect me from you trying to stab me. So that’s why it hasn’t stopped us yet. Or why it’s doing such a shit job. I’m its blind spot.” 

Did it have access to his mind, too? Well, obviously. But could it read his thoughts? It hadn’t known that Daisy could transform into a wolf, and if Jon knew anything he was very aware of that. He liked digging his fingers into her fur, liked stroking her long coat. 

“But that’s not my actual theory. My theory is that you’re omniscient. You know shit, don’t pretend you don’t. But human minds aren’t - aren’t made to know that kind of shit, yeah? I read somewhere that if there’s a limit for long term memory storage, we haven’t found it - but it has to exist, right? We can’t know _everything_. It’s overwhelming.”

Jon, who had been absently turned towards the window, angled his head a little closer to her as they whipped past signs advertising Buc-ee’s and Luby’s. He was listening. He was listening!

“So you protect yourself. You shut down. Your brain found a way to make it so that you aren’t aware of anything, because being aware of everything is just too much. You can’t filter all the stimuli, so you just shut down. Sometimes - sometimes the system gets rebooted, if the blindfold comes off, and you factory reset. That’s when your memories all get dumped. You can cope then, cuz you’re not omniscient. But then the omniscence comes back and we’re right back at square one. The vision is your link to the Beholding, but it just hurts so goddamn much you can’t use it.”

Jon’s head was more fully angled towards her now - not looking, but Seeing, somehow. 

“But I think it’s more than that,” Daisy said quietly, keeping an eye on the rising of the moon. It was full, and in some stupid part of Daisy’s mind the wolf howled. “I think you can’t cope with knowing what you’ve done. You killed and sold the world, Jon. I think you’re ashamed and guilty. So you shut down, because knowing everything would involve knowing that too. And that’s the one thing you can’t fucking deal with. I don’t think it’s conscious. Subconscious, at most. But you’ve always been the kind to run. The real you will never come back if you won’t face this fear. But sometimes people get so used to fear that they - they don’t know how to stop feeling it. Like hunger.”

Her throat was dry, and if Daisy didn’t know better she would say that Jon was staring right through her, Seeing her soul and the structure of her heart. He couldn’t see or See anything. He didn’t even know where he was. He couldn’t _really_ hear her. She told herself. 

“I’m the same way. I don’t - I don’t turn into a wolf because I love being a human so goddamn much. It’s simpler. As an animal. When you kill, it’s right. You don’t have to pretend.”

Some part of her had been hoping he would respond, maybe. But he didn’t. It was impossible to reliably get him to do it. But that was alright. 

The stars above them were big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas - according to that one kitschy rhyme she kept on seeing on all the tourist shit. As she drove through the endless expanse, she traced out Orion above her. A hunter. When she was a little girl, on her rare trips outside of London, he always seemed like he would protect her. A paternal figure, solid and silent and strong, that would strike down her enemies for her. But he never did, and eventually Daisy learned to protect herself. 

When they bunked down for the night, Daisy set their bedrolls in their usual positions on the opposite ends of the campfire, but when they got ready for sleep Jon ignored his and found his way over to hers. She tried moving him back, explaining that he had gotten on the wrong one, but every time she lay down he would find his way back and lie down next to her. She wondered if even this Jon, the man who knew everything so much that he couldn’t bear it, got scared or lonely. 

She shifted into a wolf and curled up into a ball, and let Jon run his hands through his fur until they both nodded off. If she focused and angled her ears she could almost hear something more than the wind - the sound of a faint humming, so low that a human couldn’t pick it up. The only person it could be was Jon. It sounded faintly familiar, but she just couldn’t place it.

It wasn’t until a long time later - exactly how long, she didn’t know, as she had stopped counting days - as they crossed the border into Florida, that she recognized it. When You Wish Upon a Star. She had loved the movie as a kid - and she had read that they always played it, when you first walk into Disneyland. 

Orion. Big Dipper. Little Dipper. She...didn’t know any other constellations. But she traced them out for Jon anyway, told him what little she knew about them, and made up the rest. He was omniscient, he knew every one in the sky, but sometimes when Daisy was in the middle of making up a backstory for one that looked a little like a rabbit to her she could swear that she could see him almost smile. 

It was enough. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Epilogue**

“Okay, I didn’t know you _literally_ meant Disneyworld - slow down!”

But Jon was doing his best impression of her in wolf form, head upright and speed walking as best he could across the derelict pavilion, a monument to a civilization’s former glory. Or a corporation’s glory. Daisy didn’t really give a shit about Disneyworld, she gave a shit that yesterday Jon had shoved a brochure in her face in a very empathetic and purposeful way. 

What were they going to find here? Monsters, scavengers, treasure? Maybe even…?

“Stop running,” Daisy barked, and Jon obediently slowed. She kept her elbow firmly hooked around his, with their hands tied together just in case, and when she had to pull him away from hitting his head on a pole she once again mourned how he had never picked up the hang of the cane. At least that way he wouldn’t get CTE by the time he reached middle age. 

Still, it was hard to deny - ever since they had reached Orlando, it was him leading her. He was leading her now, restlessly tugging her towards a destination only he knew, and Daisy could only do her best to keep up. 

The devastation in Florida had been... well, she had gained an appreciation for all those American jokes about how everything in Florida wanted to kill you. She was still limping from that eighty foot gator. God, what a fight that had been. Glorious. She shivered just thinking about it, aching for a rematch. 

But Disneyworld was deserted, scrubbed clean of everything but debris and rubble, and Daisy had to frantically kick aside many stray timbers and piles of rocks so that the last hope for humanity didn’t brain himself. They should have just rode the car in. She didn’t feel safe without the car. 

“Slow _down_ , Jon!”

But then Daisy heard something for the first time in a very long time: the faint and musical sound of voices. 

She wouldn’t run. She couldn’t. She forced Jon slower, making him walk at even step next to her so he wouldn’t cut his head open on any rocks, and as they crossed from what looked like the entrance pavilion into some kind of esplanade with a resplendent castle in the scenery, she saw four people she had never expected to see again. 

They were standing in the center of a large, intricately painted pentagram, talking amongst themselves with a forced casual air. Someone had dragged over a picnic table and set it to the side, where two of them were sitting and talking. One of them with long, matted curly red hair pulled into a tight ponytail, and the other with a shaved head, dark skin, and a big smile. They were holding hands, whispering to each other. 

But Daisy’s attention was caught by one of the figures in the center, a figure who had been talking with a short and muscular man who she almost didn’t recognize. But once Daisy did see her everything fell away, and nothing else mattered, because Basira was alive and Daisy’s heart wanted to rip itself out of her chest. 

For the first time in an excessively long time, Daisy wondered hysterically what she looked like. Her buzz cut was short, bristly and rough, and she had more guns and weaponry strapped to her than looked reasonably sane. She was wearing flannel with cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, still left over from Texas, and as a joke a toy Sheriff’s badge that Jon had pressed into her hands with the ghost of a smile. Nothing about her was the same. Everything was rough, worn down by sands and wind, and the cold march of time. 

But Basira - Basira looked the same, in every way that mattered. 

She knew, without even having to look, that Martin was staring at Jon like his sun was rising. 

“I told you we were right to wait,” Martin said, triumphantly, and Basira’s dark eyes locked into Daisy’s. She didn’t move, expression shuttered closed, and Daisy was proud of her. 

Jon surged forward, arm reaching out for Martin, but Daisy kept him pinned to her side. Melanie and Georgie stood up, faces more obvious in their expressions of shock and joy, but she was more than aware of what the Stranger could do. 

The Wolf would know - but Daisy had no intention of tipping that particular hand quite yet. 

“Say the magic words, you two,” Basira said, withdrawing a shotgun and pointing it at her. 

“Basira,” Martin said, scandalized. Then he did a double-take at Jon - at the blindfold and the hand tie, likely. “Oh, good lord. Did you _kidnap_ him?”

“Why does everyone think that?” Daisy growled, but she forced herself to calm her breathing and raise one hand in surrender. Use communication. Use your words. “What memory do you want? September 15th, 2015?”

“Try again. Memories are easy to come by.” Basira’s dark gaze locked on Daisy, at the way her other hand was still latched tight in restraining a now complacent Jon. “Do something only Daisy would do.”

Daisy scowled. “No.”

“Excuse me?” Basira asked, somewhat taken back. 

“No. You aren’t even intimidating. Your form’s all shit, you’re going to dislocate your shoulder like that. You’ve been taking shit care of your equipment, too. An improperly maintained weapon -”

“ - is dangerous only to you,” Basira finished, with a sigh. She lowered her gun, and for the first time small, silent tears trailed down her grimy cheeks. “Daisy.”

“Do we still have to check Jon?” Martin asked loudly. “I mean, he _looks_ like him, but I’ve never known Jon to shut up for this long.”

“Me neither,” Georgie said, frowning. “Daisy, what’s...wrong with him?”

“Nothing,” Daisy snapped, but she ended up sighing too. “A lot. Martin, come here.” She carefully unlooped the rope from his wrist, gripping the back of his collar as Martin slowly crossed the pavillion. The way his eyes never drifted from Jon, never strayed, as if he couldn’t believe the truth - how desperate had he been? How deep had that loneliness dug? “It’s Martin, Jon,” Daisy found herself whispering, in a comforting murmur that she used on him sometimes when he seemed agitated and afraid and neither of them knew why. “Remember Martin? You have to. I think you do. You had that bonding moment in Scotland, with the cows? They were so fluffy and big. You remember it. He’s short, overly friendly looking. Remember?” Martin was in front of them now, still looking as if he was in a dream, and Daisy cautiously let go of Jon. She glared at Martin. “Don’t touch the blindfold. If it comes off the Eye finds us. He’s not all there, Martin. His mind is gone, I don’t know about his memory. But he told me that we had to go all the way ‘round the world to meet you here, so here we are. Don’t break him.”

But he wasn’t listening to her anymore. Neither of them were. They were just staring at each other, and Daisy knew that this was the end. She had passed the torch. No matter what happened, Jon would be okay now. Martin seemed - tougher. He should be able to protect him. Who did that leave for Daisy?

She glanced over her shoulder at Basira, who was just watching, and Daisy found herself irrationally wishing for a reunion as dramatic and romantic as Jon and Martin were having. Did Basira not - did she not love her anymore?

Or had the Daisy that Basira always known refused abjectly any public displays of affection, especially where the other assistants could see? Did Basira think that Daisy hadn’t _changed_?

But why wouldn’t she? Daisy had assumed that Basira hadn’t changed. She was such an idiot. 

“Hey,” Martin whispered, and maybe he had paid attention to Daisy after all. “Jon. Jon, it’s - it’s Martin. I came. Like you asked. In our dreams, remember? In the fog?” Jon didn’t respond - couldn’t. Martin was, embarrassingly, tearing up. “You said that you were with Daisy, and that you were just fine. You smiled at me, Jon, and said that there were sheep where you were. Do you remember that? I was always wondering - where had he found _sheep_ in the apocalypse? Could - could I be there too? Jon?” His voice faltered, just a little bit. “Jon?”

A second passed, then two, and Daisy was just about to tell Martin not to get his hopes up when Jon reached a hand out. Two hands, clutching tightly to Martin’s round and ridiculous face, and he stepped closer, and Martin embraced him so tightly Daisy thought she heard bones crack. Martin looked like he wanted to eat Jon a little bit, and Daisy was about to warn him against kissing someone who might not even know what was going on, but then Jon stepped back just enough so he could kiss Martin deeply. 

Huh. Daisy hadn’t known - hm. 

She wondered, if he was going to - going to dramatically say, “Martin, I love you!”. Or maybe “I thought of you every day, and we should get married forever and save the world”. If love was capable of fixing broken brains, mending broken hearts. It seemed right and poetic that it should happen, that everything should be okay now. If the problem was that Jon couldn’t bear to face reality, was this a reality that he could face? Was this all it would take to cure him? Was this all it would take to cure Daisy?

But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. They just held each other and cried, and Daisy did the most courageous thing she had done since the apocalypse began and walked over to stand next to Basira. She was still crying. Georgie was crying too. Melanie was smiling, with a particular shadow to it that made it feel as if she hadn’t smiled in a very long time. 

“Glad to see me?” Daisy asked lowly. The two lovebirds finally came up for air, and Martin was still murmuring to Jon in a low voice that she couldn’t catch with her human ears. She didn’t even want to. 

“You have no idea,” Basira said back, sparing a wan smile. “I was stuck with nobody for company but Martin for way too long. We landed in - Oregon, I think? I mean, pretty, but a while back we started getting Jon popping up in our dreams and telling us to come here. We ran into Melanie and Georgie in Kansas, and we’ve been following the same trail ever since. I don’t even know _how_ we ended up all the way here, but -”

Daisy didn’t care, so she kissed her, not caring who saw it, and Basira kissed back. 

It was - public, and vulnerable, and scarier than wrestling an eighty foot gator. But it made Daisy’s heart settle into safe comfort, as if there really was nothing out there that could hurt her, so long as Basira was there. 

“Let’s save the world,” Daisy said, for the first time. But it was the first time she felt as if there was something to save. 

Jon smiled at her, shadowed but real, and when she smiled back his smile stretched wider until it was almost a grin. 

It was enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> Questions, concerns, wild guesses about my state of origin? Please direct them to theinternationalacestation.tumblr.com. Thank you. Have a good day. 
> 
> DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS


End file.
